Saviours of Irish rock? The return of 79Cortinaz

They’re back! Back?! BAACK!! Carlow’s foremost rock ‘n’ roll sons (i.e. band) 79Cortinaz have risen from the grave and seem intent on returning to the studio to entertain us with further adventures in rural indie guitar rock. They released their debut album Hopioki in early 2008, before apparently breaking up in December of that year.

We say “apparently”, as this split was disputed – loyal, patient and/or weary readers of this blog might remember the most bizarre comments thread in IHGN‘s history, when, running against the spirit of positive yearly album round-ups, I gathered together a selection of my Worst Albums of 2008. A member of the band, who firstly mistook me for a female critic (?) denied they had split up and took more than a little umbrage at the album review. As well he might. Hopefully that’s all water under the bridge now.

In the meantime, the band have very kindly gathered together their own back catalogue and put them on Soundcloud so that you may judge for yourselves.

We must admit, the RTE session material is a distinct improvement on the album recordings, and well worth a listen.

As for the reformation, the band’s Cormac Strain says: “79Cortinaz have got back together again, minus our original drummer. Seems like the only way to get a suitable drummer was to breed one, so my 18 year old son – who’s grown up on the stuff and ‘gets’ it – is now playing with us. New material is coming out quite nicely. If he hadn’t come along then we wouldn’t have started again as we found it really hard to find a drummer that fitted.”

We are all of a jitter in anticipation. All the best, lads!